


A Singing Silence

by one_windiga



Category: James Bond (Movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, M/M, breathing kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-15
Updated: 2012-11-15
Packaged: 2017-11-18 17:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/one_windiga/pseuds/one_windiga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bond has learned to measure the time, the danger, the eminence of death by the quality of silence in his ear.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Singing Silence

Bond has learned to measure the time, the danger, the eminence of death by the quality of silence in his ear. It is never the dead silence of a disconnected line, but a singing silence, one that lived and breathed and was pushed and pushed back. It has colors, textures, tones, and if he were a man with a greater inclination towards the arts he might have tried to describe them. But then again, maybe not.

The silence is soft and distant, unassuming, as he flicks his eyes unseeingly over the lines of the newspaper. His target is seated across the square, currently being served coffee by an impolite waitress. Bond has already made it clear that Q is not to solve his crosswords for him, so instead the line is quiet. The close sound of breathing is absent, an anesthetized grey, so he knows that he's on speakerphone, the rustling of his papers and the muted birdsong echoing off of the cinderblock walls of the MI6 basement. A suspicious shuffle of an older man taking off his coat has Bond standing and doing a slow walk around the perimeter, and the silence shifts.

It's aware as he hunts, aware in a strange way that Bond can't classify in words, but the blank of the earbud seems attentive and bright and focused suddenly when he stands. When he puts a hand to the gun in his shoulder holster, there's a faint crackling sound for just a moment before the silence changes again.

Now it's breathing, steady and soft like old cotton, slightly static around the edges from how close the microphone is to Q's lips, no longer on speakerphone, and Bond can almost imagine the warmth on his ear from his breath. Q mumbles something acidic about disrespect for tea, which Bond doesn't dignify with a response. He slips quickly around the cafe onto the street, hopping into the waiting car and settling into the chase.

As the car's suspension jitters and hops with the cracks between the cobblestones, the silence in his ear is punctuated by the staccato gunshot clacks of a keyboard, rattling off faster than Bond would have thought possible three months ago before he met him. The streetlights all turn miraculously green the instant he reaches them, and the GPS hooked onto the dashboard lights up unbidden with a bright green route, entirely illegal, that takes him on shortcuts through tunnels and yards.

When he jerks the car sharply to the right to crash into the side of the target's, glass shattering and metal crumpling, the noise of a pen cap being chewed anxiously invades his ear. He jumps out of the driver's seat, gun already drawn, and enters into the fray. The crunching in his ear is almost drowned out by the gunshots and the shouting, but it runs beneath it, a familiar undercurrent.

When the grenades go off, and the sky turns red and hot and and his skin feels tight with the heat, there's a sharp hitch of breath in his ear, a flash of white against the backdrop of the explosions. It echoes in his head as his skull pounds and he climbs out from behind the rubble.

That night, the silence in his ears is not relayed, is not far-but-close, is not balanced by the tug of a plastic wire, but pressed up against his skin, sweaty and warm, salty and pliant and expressive. Q is silent in speech, but his hands grip and guide him, and his lips open and close, shaping words that are trapped and die in his mouth. His breath speeds and jolts, rumbling with swallowed moans and, finally, shattering.

After, Bond lies down next to him as he falls asleep, and listens to him breathe.


End file.
